Normal People Are Beginning to Acknowledge Their Loss of Free Speech
cheapskatesguide.org“ A few months ago, I was also shadow banned on Hacker News. I have no idea why, and I doubt that I will ever know.”
@Dang are people ever shadow banned, and does the system tell them this?
I vehemently disagree with shadow banning, it seems cowardly. If someone is to be silently muzzled or shadow banned, if you will, I think it’s proper transparency to notify them of this.
It doesn't work to use @dang in comments - you have to email https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html if you want to contact us, as the site guidelines say: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Shadowbanning on HN is reserved for spammers and serial trolls, where telling people that their account is banned leads to further abuse of the site. When it's an account with an established history, we tell people we're banning them and why: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
There's lots more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... If you browse those explanations and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to answer it.
By the way, that quote is a bit silly since all people have to do to find out why they were banned is ask us.
Btw also, a lot of the time people think they've been banned when they haven't been banned. As one common example, their own-stuff posts may be getting killed because they're breaking this site guideline: "Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff occasionally, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity." That's not the same thing as banning an entire account, though it can look that way if all the account ever does is promote its own stuff.
And we have no recourse or ability to appeal the decision